this boundless will to please

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
you will lead me on the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always
though I may seem lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
for you are ever with me
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

A Prayer of Thomas Merton

I was given a copy of this prayer at the end of a Pilgrimage Walk to Buildwas Abbey back on a hot summer's day in June, organised by Peace Church. For me was an amazing experience of worship and prayer through walking and talking; of faith and practice in transition and on the move, and of communion. Thomas Merton's prayer has stayed in my wallet for the past 4 months, and I often read it, contemplate it and pray the words. They reveal new layers of meaning to this poem by Housman, but also to the single words that I've collected at the bottom:

If truth in hearts that perish
Could move the powers on high,
I think the love I bear you
Should make you not to die.

Sure, sure, if stedfast meaning,
If single thought could save,
The world might end to-morrow,
You should not see the grave.

This long and sure-set liking,
This boundless will to please,
—Oh, you should live for ever
If there were help in these.

But now, since all is idle,
To this lost heart be kind,
Ere to a town you journey
Where friends are ill to find.

Poem XXXIII from 'A Shropshire Lad'
by A. E. Housman

wood engraving by Agnes Miller Parker

truth; power; love; save; will; lost